


Harpstrings

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, canon-typical incest, implicit sexual abuse, inventing joanna canon as we go, pre-asoiaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Before Joanna Lannister was the Lady of Casterly Rock, she was young and enamored with a certain Lannister knight.





	Harpstrings

Joanna does not lack for sisters. Should she even neglect to count her bastard half-sister, and she often does -- it isn’t malice, it’s simply easy to forget she exists, even though she lives here in the westerlands -- she has younger sisters, children whom she coddles and chides, echoing their mother in a childish voice.  _ Don’t tease the hounds! There are enough dolls for the both of you, the seven heavens know that no two little girls could need so many dolls. There, there, come here, no need to cry so. _

 

But Genna is different. How can a cousin feel so much closer than anyone else she knows? Genna is not her sister truly, but they were born the same year. In fact, the moon had only turned twice after Joanna’s birth when her aunt gave her Genna. Later, Joanna would learn her mother held a small and soft but unyielding grudge against her aunt Jeyne, for Marla believed the younger woman to be desperate to imitate her and had chosen the closest name to ‘Joanna’ for her own daughter that she could get away with. “Like ‘Joanna’ said by a drunken man,” her mother had sniffed, and Joanna could only laugh, learning such a closely guarded secret, learning such a stupid one. 

 

Joanna, Genna -- they ought to sound alike, though, for they are, if not easy to mistake for twins, easy to mistake for sisters. Genna is tall, even as a little girl, and much louder, but they both wear golden curls and dresses of red and both of them have been accidentally called by the other’s name more times than they can count. At Casterly Rock, they play together, they sleep in the same wing, they walk down to the sea together to look for starfish under the watchful eye of Septa Reyle. And they take their lessons together, lessons in reading and sums, but lessons in dance and embroidery and music as well.

 

Genna is a skillful dancer, and has a lovely voice as well, though she prefers bawdy songs to the hymns they are expected to sing in the sept -- when they two of them are wedded women, much later, they will laugh, because neither of them had actually know how dirty those songs really were and why hadn’t anyone stopped them? Perhaps Septa Reyle had been too fearful to admonish the noisy, bullheaded Genna. But Genna and Joanna had been expected to learn to to play the harp as well, and here Genna had struggled while Joanna had flourished. 

 

“It matters more that you’ll know this sort of thing,” Genna had grumbled once before Joanna was to leave for King’s Landing. By this time, they can be trusted to practice without a chaperone most of the time, mostly because Joanna’s talent has become so obvious, and so has her desire to become even more proficient. Leave her alone and she might practice for hours, until she is called to dinner, and then her fingertips will thrum with a lovely pain, or at least they did before she built up a ladylike callus. “At the Red Keep, the ladies in waiting are held to a higher standard. If they wish for me to impress anyone at the Twins, they ought to teach me, I don’t know. How to remember the names of all of my new kin.”

 

“Perhaps they’ll give you a journal as a wedding gift, with everyone’s pictures painted inside,” Joanna had japed. 

 

“Well, in that case, they should some pages blank, in case my good-father gives my betrothed more siblings.” She sighed. “Perhaps they’ll find you a better match in King’s Landing. You’ll have my brother there to speak up, should a poor choice be made.”

 

Jenna’s brother would be in the party accompanying Joanna on her journey. He had already been granted his knighthood, had become fast friends with the crown prince, and was only back in Casterly Rock to see family he had not visited since he was a cupbearer for the king. He would not be staying very long, but he had made a point to visit with Genna, present her with gifts, listen to all of her chattering. “I feel as though I’ll be stealing your protector,” Joanna answered, strumming the harp strings to make a soft sound.

 

“The dragon prince stole my protector, and I told Tywin so myself. Suppose he steals you too?”

 

“A dragon prince would not lay eyes on me.” 

 

“That’s what you think. You could be a princess by the year’s end.”

 

Joanna laughed, making an expression like she had bitten a tart cherry. “Should I become a princess, the first raven I send will be to you.”

 

For now, Joanna is too focused on perfecting the song she has been learning to worry about such nonsense about dragon princes and betrothals, especially now that Aerys has been hurriedly wed, to his sister, of course, that's the Targaryen way. A rumor says that Rhaella had had eyes for some lowly knight and that it would interfere with all of the careful plans the king had for the royal family, and so no dragon would marry Joanna after all. A relief, if Joanna is honest. It would be dizzying to be queen, and she would much rather be the lady of a keep like Casterly Rock.

Genna plucks a few strings halfheartedly, almost producing a sound that is pleasant, but soon turns her attention to the window and the various people coming and going beneath it. From the corner of her eye, Joanna can see her cousin leaning far enough to nearly fall out, making a face at someone before drawing back inside with a laugh, but she hasn’t made any mistakes in playing so far and she would be loathe to stop now. Even when the person who Genna was making faces at knocks lightly on the open door, Joanna continues.

 

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Tywin says, the very picture of a young knight as he stands in the doorway.

 

“You haven’t,” Joanna answers, smiling and not stopping, and Genna stifles a snort. He tilts his head only slightly to indicate any degree of surprise at such an answer. 

 

“I wanted to assure my sister she is welcome at court anytime she should care to visit.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure that King Aegon will be clamoring for the presence of Walder Frey’s gooddaughter, and not even the next Lady of the Twins,” Genna says. 

 

“Your wit will doubtless amuse the princess,” Tywin answers, diplomatic for his sister’s sake, or perhaps sarcastic. It’s hard to tell sometimes. 

 

“Ah, yes, I’ll await Princess Rhaella’s raven inviting me to entertain her personally. She could introduce me to Jenny of Oldstones.”

 

Joanna has at last reached the end of the song she has learned, and the music dies away, leaving the room suddenly quiet. “No doubt Joanna will have all sorts of interesting things to tell you about when she takes her place at court,” Tywin responds. “Surely she will have a perspective quite more interesting to you than my own.”

 

“More interesting than battle and horse dung and how many captives were taken,” Genna agrees. “Until they let me participate myself, battle couldn’t interest me less. I suppose I’d change my tune if they let me hold a sword.”

 

“Ask the Seven to give you more skill with a sword than with a harp,” Joanna laughs.

 

“And you, Joanna, have nothing to ask the Seven for in that regard.” Tywin seems to have been looking for just this opportunity. “You’ll be glad to know that there is a master of music at the Red Keep who will loan you a harp to continue your education.”

 

Genna gave another badly-masked snort. “I should hope the king himself could find a harp or two for his collection.”

 

Joanna’s reply is far more measured and courteous, but there is still a gleam of something pleasantly mischievous in her eye. “I would be gladdened to continue my studies, ser.”

 

“Must I call you ser as well?” Genna wants to know. She hasn’t seen him since before King Aegon had knighted him, though they all knew that she would simply call him Tywin no matter what his response was. 

 

“I could no more force you to call me ser than I could wring golden dragons from a river stone. Your lady cousin is far more polite.”

 

“ _ Your _ lady cousin knows she must curry favor with her protector on the road to King’s Landing,” Genna insists, and this is the first time that Joanna can recall seeing him smile, truly. 

 

“Joanna has no need to make such a request,” he says. “My sword is yours for the long road and beyond.”

 

Thankfully, Joanna’s hands are no longer on the harpstrings, or else she might have broken one with the sudden jolt of sweet anxiety that shoots through her body, the sudden thought that dragon princes may not compare to lion knights. 

 

* * *

 

Joanna continues to study the harp during her years as a lady-in-waiting to Rhaella. It is a pastime that the princess encourages; for Rhaella is prone to sleeplessness and nightmares, and music helps, especially at night. She was already wed and with child by the time by the time Joanna arrived, though not yet showing in any noticeable way, and sometimes Joanna will be shut out of Rhaella’s chambers because Aerys has come do his duty as a husband. Rhaella has never spoken of his bedroom manner, as is only appropriate of a royal and a lady, and besides, the bruises on her collarbone speak for themselves.

 

Rhaella is kind to her, almost like an older sister at times, though of course the difference in their ages is only a matter of moons. She is a romantic and often asks Joanna if this knight or that lordling strikes her fancy, perhaps hopeful that she can be the benefactress of someone else’s happiness, the way Joanna liked to pair up her dolls into arranged marriages when she was very young. This sort of talk brings Rhaella out of shell more than anything -- she can be positively vivacious when jesting about promising to bring Joanna any sort of suitor she likes. “As if any of them would refuse a golden lioness,” she says in her low husky voice. So long as the game stays this way, simply a game, Joanna enjoys it. In her heart of hearts, though, she knows only a lion would please her.

 

At other times, Rhaella, though a wife and mother-to-be, feels far more like a younger sister, and here Joanna has far more experience. She can soothe and comfort, she can comb Rhaella’s silver-white hair in long unhurried strokes, she can play her harp until the breath of the princess goes slow and steady. This is practice Joanna has, but also practice Joanna is happy to gain. She allows herself to imagine comforting a lover in this way. Not a husband like Rhaella’s, whose gleaming violet eyes look poisonous, so much so that she feels physically ill when they meet her own. Nothing like him. 

 

She cannot imagine any event that might happen that would cause Tywin to truly require comfort, but she reaches deep into her own selfishness and pretends that it could happen and only she could console him.

 

She has reason to believe perhaps this could be possible. Tywin is not the sort of knight to compose verse or sing beneath her window, but Joanna flatters herself into believing that his stony demeanor softens when they spend time together, and he does seem to make an effort to find time, time that he may not truly have. He takes her riding, hunting, gifts her a falcon with no name because he insists she will be far better at naming. (Lovesick, she wonders if she ought to take more meaning out of that than simply what’s been stated, could he mean children as well? She and Jenna have long discussed names they liked for babes, never mind the family that they might be born into.) He seems to like having long conversations, and with her, he always has more to say. He asks to listen to her play her harp while he writes letters to be sent out on behalf of the prince, tells her it makes it easier to think. She lives to make him smile, and succeeds more often than she fails. 

 

When the prince and princess leave for the celebration at Summerhall, a midwife in tow because Rhaella is so near to giving birth, Tywin takes strategic advantage of the time and privacy they have been allowed and asks for her hand in marriage.

 

They are in the godswood, the daylight filtering down through the cottonwoods, and a striped cat has been following them since they walked outside, trying to stalk and pounce for the cords that hang from Joanna’s dress. Tywin seems impassively disapproving of the creature, but Joanna laughs and says, “He wants to audition for the role of a lion. He wants to impress us, clearly.”

 

“Lions are born, or wed,” Tywin answers, taking the cords and tying them more securely around Joanna’s waist, so they are out of the cat’s reach. “Or in the case of some, both.” He is behind her now, and she thanks the gods for that, so he won’t see the flush that creeps up her face at that. But the flush only worsens when he continues.

 

“Joanna.”

 

She has no witty comment for him now. She feels herself standing at the precipice of something, a cliff on the other side of the world from where Rhaella and Aerys stand. “Yes?”

 

“I wish to wait no longer in asking for you to marry me.”

 

There is a moment of silent, bright surprise, his hands on her waist still, and she is as taut as the strings of her harp before she collapses into relieved laughter. “Then wait no longer,” she finds herself able to tease, even though her mind is already racing, even though she already has mentally written a hundred letters to Genna. 

 

What happens next is so rare and strange and impossible that she has to spin around, her flush be damned, to make sure it’s really happening. He laughs with her, low, not much, but it’s a chuckle as sure as her hair is gold. Perhaps he is just as relieved as she is. “Joanna, understand. Many lords would like a Lannister for a good-daughter, and many knights have surely hoped to win your affections. With such competition, I waited as long as I dared. But…”

 

Later Joanna will understand what Tywin truly meant by competition, and why he chose to wait for his closest friend to be on his way to Dorne before approaching her this way. 

 

“But now you dare not wait any longer,” she finishes, and he nods. 

 

“I would rather lose my knighthood than lose you to some minor knight,” Tywin says. 

 

She swallows hard and rubs, most unbecomingly, at her eyes, so he won’t see her start to cry at something so unexpected. “That wouldn’t happen,” she manages to say, both laughing and crying, and the cat at their feet flops down and exposes his belly, purring like it’s happy for them. How, she wonders for the hundredth time, but about Tywin instead of his sister, can a cousin feel so much closer than anyone else? There was never any competition in her heart. “I would accept nothing less than a Lannister,” she adds, and this wins her the sort of smile she is familiar with, proud and resolute but true, worth its weight in gold.

 

“Nor I, my lady.”

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for my absolutely lovely best friend, who knows more about House Lannister than anyone in the known universe and whom I am honored to take a whack at pre-story canon for. Thanks to Wiki of Ice and Fire for helping me attempt to parse timelines; also sorry but not sorry if things are noooooot entirely perfect time-wise.


End file.
